nonce.
The one or single occasion; the present reason or purpose.
Meaning & usage
The one or single occasion; the present reason or purpose.
That will do for the nonce, but we'll need a better answer for the long term.
A nonce word.
I had thought that the term was a nonce, but it seems as if it's been picked up by other authors.
A value constructed so as to be unique to a particular message in a stream, in order to prevent replay attacks.
Where this word comes from
Inherited from Middle English nonse, nones, a rebracketing of Middle English to þen anes, for þen anes (to/for the once (i.e., the one occasion or instance)), from the dative singular neuter of þe. The cryptography sense is commonly said to be a contraction of number used once, although this is probably incorrect.
One-off; produced or created for a single occasion or use. Denoting something occurring once.
Where this word comes from
Inherited from Middle English nonse, nones, a rebracketing of Middle English to þen anes, for þen anes (to/for the once (i.e., the one occasion or instance)), from the dative singular neuter of þe. The cryptography sense is commonly said to be a contraction of number used once, although this is probably incorrect.
A sex offender, especially one who is guilty of sexual offences against children.
A pedophile.
A police informer, one who betrays a criminal enterprise
A stupid or worthless person.
Shut it, ya nonce!
Where this word comes from
1975. Unknown, derived from British criminal slang. Several origins have been proposed; possibly derived from dialectal nonce, nonse (“stupid, worthless individual”) (but this cannot be shown to predate nonce "child-molester" and is likely a toned-down usage of the same insult), or Nance, nance (“effeminate man, homosexual”), from nancy or nancyboy. The rhyme with ponce has also been noted. As prison slang also said to be an acronym for "Not On Normal Communal Exercise" (Stevens 2012), but this is likely a backronym.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.